


Commemoration

by M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, POV Kaz Brekker, Siblings, Touch-Starved, Yuletide 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/pseuds/M%20J%20Holyoke
Summary: Once a year, Kaz remembers.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker & Jordie Rietveld
Comments: 14
Kudos: 80
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Commemoration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carotid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carotid/gifts).



It wasn’t a proper holiday or a Saint’s Day. Not one celebrated anywhere in Kerch, at any rate, or in Ravka, Fjerda, Shu Han, or even faraway Novyi Zem. Not that any of them knew.

But if you were a member of the Dregs, you knew that today was special to Kaz Brekker. Either that, or you figured it out. Because if you didn’t figure it out—and figure it out mighty quickly— you weren’t going to last very long.

Today was the day you left Dirtyhands alone. You didn’t bother him with requests or questions or with problems you could solve yourself. You didn’t, in fact, talk to him at all or get in his way. Today was the day you pretended Kaz Brekker wasn’t there—and that was exactly how Kaz liked it and wanted it to stay.

They didn’t have much occasion to see him today, anyway. He spent most of his day in his attic room at the top of the Slat which served as both attic and bedroom. He kept the door locked and the window bolted. Some who didn’t know him particularly well might have thought he was sleeping past midday. Others who knew him better might have thought that he was cross-checking the books well into the night, and if they had something to hide, they spent the day hiding themselves, in fear.

But Kaz was not sleeping, nor was he cross-checking profit and loss figures. He was simply sitting on the edge of his bed, motionless, his hands resting in his lap.

Then, he began to take his gloves off.

* * *

Living on the family farm meant that there hadn’t really been any other kids around. Mostly, Kaz had played with Jordie.

Jordie was the elder by four years, and if they’ve lived in a big city like Ketterdam or even one of the smaller market towns, he probably would’ve just rolled his eyes and told Kaz to hang out with kids his own age. But because it’d been only them—only Kaz and Jordie—Jordie had rarely had the heart to tell Kaz no.

They’d liked to roughhouse and wrestle. They’d still been boys, after all. It wasn’t like the deadly violence that Kaz would master later in life, precise and silent. No, theirs had been simple play, loud and undisciplined, rollicking through the fields in the warmer months and in the hay bales in the barn during the winter.

Jordie had always been careful. Their play had been exuberant, but never _too_ exuberant. He’d never, _ever_ have hurt his little brother.

There wasn’t any hay in the Barrel. Not the golden, sweet-smelling kind Kaz remembered loving. Not the strong, scratchy kind that’d made his sweaty skin itch or tickled the insides of his nostrils so that occasionally he’d sneeze or gotten tangled up in his hair as he and Jordie had rolled around and around and around . . . yelling and laughing and howling . . .

They’d used to nap in the hale bales too, sometimes, after they’d gotten too tired to play anymore. Jordie would curl is bigger body around Kaz’s smaller one, and Kaz would rest his head against Jordie’s chest. He’d count the slow, steady beats of Jordie’s heart.

They used to hold hands as they dreamed.

* * *

The gloves came off slowly, one finger at a time. First the left, then the right. It wasn’t easy; it was never easy.

Kaz would probably hate himself more if this ever became easy.

He set his gloves aside and lifted his hands from his lap. He held them out, palms soft and smooth. Bare. Vulnerable. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Jordie,” he whispered to the empty attic room. “Jordie, I’m here.”

* * *

That first whisper of contact felt like a draft, a puff of breeze. A tingling on the tips of Kaz’s fingers. Then the sensation became warmer, stronger, and Kaz had to remind himself not to pull away.

He wasn’t disgusted, though; he wasn’t the least bit afraid. That was how he knew. That was _always_ how he knew.

The fingers were longer and thicker than Kaz’s but still a boy’s, not a man’s. They curled, pads against Kaz’s knuckles, and pulled their palms together. He could feel the callouses on those palms.

Those hands pulled Kaz out of bed and upright onto his feet, and the arms attached to those hands embraced him. Kaz yielded to the embrace, to the tender kiss on his cheek, and rested his head against the big, strong chest. He counted the beats of his brother’s heart.

“I’ve missed you,” Kaz whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and hot tears leaked out from the corners. “It’s hard, going on without you. So hard, so, so hard . . .”

His brother did not answer. What could he have said that would have made it better, would have made the burden _easier_ to bear? The quest for vengeance against Pekka Rollins kept him going, but it couldn’t give him comfort. It couldn’t hold him when his heart hurt; it couldn’t stroke his hair . . .

“You were my big brother, Jordie. I depended on you. I _trusted_ you to take care of me. Why didn’t you stay?”

No response. Only the body which held him tighter, the body that had been there for him to hold on to, even after . . . after . . .

The tears were coming harder now, coming faster. He wanted to roughhouse in the hay. He wanted to be held as he slept. He wanted, wanted, _wanted_. He positively ached with want. “I thought you were strong. I thought you would protect me. But you didn’t protect me. You were weak.”

No response. Rage threatened to choke Kaz, and every fiber of his being protested the sensation of human contact, but he didn’t yet pull away from the embrace.

“Why, Jordie? _Why weren’t you strong enough to protect me?!_ ”

When Kaz’s eyes flew open, there was no one in the room with him. He’d been speaking to empty air. He was alone.

“ _I_ won’t be weak like you,” Dirtyhands said to no one.


End file.
